Nina Metz

I’m not saying the film needed to be formally experimental. But as it is, the documentary feels deeply pointless.

The film doesn’t seem particularly interested in who Turner is as an artist, or her creative inclinations and musical instincts.

The end result is a movie that comes across as disappointingly vacant, a jumbled collection of good intentions gone wrong.

There are colors that pop throughout film — as if, in a nod to the title, drawn from a TV test pattern — and visually this is what stayed with me, from the yellow of Renesha’s dress, to the aqua benches against the white antiseptic floors of the hospital waiting room

Writer-director Lee Isaac Chung is telling his own story here. The rough outlines and even some of the specific details are autobiographical and filtered through his memories of childhood. But he’s also considering these themes from his perspective now as an adult with a child of his own . . . and he straddles the two sides of this line so well, with wit and nuance, but also with such cutting precision.

Early on, the camera is outside looking in through the couple’s windows and it’s as if we’re eavesdropping. That kind of cinematic intimacy is a huge draw, even if things are about to get ugly.